


Growing Up

by ashkatom



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 07:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Psi hits puberty, nobody knows what is going on, and yet they try to help anyway. Features four instances of quadrant questioning, several instances of sulking, some alarming biological happenings, and a Talk that nobody is going to forget very soon, if ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Up

Pol has always been kind of moody. And by kind of moody, you mean he rides the emotion rollercoaster until he throws up, then eats a bunch of grief candy and then goes again. He hit metamorphosis before you and Panthe, so you’ve both been chalking it up to hornache and shedding-itchiness, but there comes a point when enough is enough.

“Eat something,” you say as firmly as you can. You are doing your very best to channel Rosa, but you think you’re falling short of the mark since if you were channelling her properly your best friend in the whole world would not be curled up in a knot and sulking.

“No,” your sulkmeister refuses eloquently.

Panthe squats beside him and pokes him in the cheek. “Why not?”

“It hurtth,” Pol says, and that has you worried. Because a) Pol is in pain and b) for Pol to admit he is in pain, he is probably being devoured alive from the inside out and you would really rather have your friend than an empty shell.

You’re better at coaxing him unwound than Panthe, but it takes both of you sitting with him and papping him to get some food into him. It’s not a voices issue, which is both relieving and unsettling. He skirts around your questions with mumbled evasions, until you get fed up.

“Where does it hurt?” you ask.

Pol hesitates, but between you and Panthe frowning at him, he gives in and rests his hands low on his stomach. “Everywhere,” he admits, giving up. “My back acheth, my gutth are kicking me in the thpine, and I’m pretty sure that my thionicth are all futhy.”

You sigh and drag him onto your lap, digging your fingers into his back. Panthe tackles his shoulders and says cheerfully, “You are a big lump of problems!”

“Fuck you too,” Pol snaps, before you find a spot in his back that makes him squirm. “KC, quit it, that _tickles_ -”

“Eat regularly, then,” you say, and maybe you can’t do firm but you are an old hand at implacable. “Or I will tickle you into the nutrition block.” You dig your fingers in again, and this time you get a rumble with the edge of his adult voice thrown in. You’re not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but he seems to be more functional than he was, so you keep digging your fingers into his muscles and working out as much tension as you can, Panthe helping and teasing the whole time.

\--

You thought that maybe you’d have a reprieve from Moody McSymmetry after you managed to get him to eat, but you’re woken up by a slime-covered Pol wriggling into your pile of blankets at an hour when neither of you should be awake.

“Eeeugh,” you greet him. You were going for, “Gross, why are you awake and slime-ridden and in my bed,” but forced insomniacs can’t be choosy. 

“I am the wortht,” Pol says.

You think that’s bad, so you pap him. “Mnuh.”

“It hurtth,” he says, and there is a waver in his voice that wakes you up instantly. You notice now that he’s back to curling up like a grub, arms wrapped tight around his stomach. There is colour high in his cheeks, and his eyes are sparking unevenly.

You are not qualified to deal with this.

“Pol, we need to tell Rosa,” you say. It is a testament to his misery that he just nods.

\--

You have never been so embarrassed _in your life_. You can feel your ears burning and you kind of want to cower behind Pol, except the flaw in that plan is that he is already trying to cower behind you and the two of you are turning into a trollblob while Rosa just. Keeps. _Talking_. This talk is reaching legendary status. For sweeps, neither you or Pol will be able to refer to it as anything but _The Talk_.

“Karcin, this is important, you’ll be going through this in a sweep or so,” she says, and ruffles your hair. “Pay attention, please.”

“What if I don’t?” you ask hopefully. “Since I’m a mutant.”

“If anything, it means you’ll reach this stage faster.” She frowns at you, like she always does when you call yourself a mutant, but you figure there’s no point in dancing around the word. Pol’s a mutant too, with his double horns and tongues, anyway.

Pol uncurls from his little-ball-of-puberty-pain ( _bluuuuuuh_ ) and says, “I’m hungry.”

Rosa nods and places a hand on his shoulder, which is weird. “You will be,” she says. “At least until you’re done purging. You’re burning a lot of calories to create genetic material at the moment.”

“Uuuuuugh,” you say loudly, and try to bury yourself under Pol’s arm. He shoves you off, which is weird, but this _thing_ is making him crankier than normal.

“Karcin, this is a perfectly normal stage of life,” Rosa says, and you can tell she’s annoyed at you even if she doesn’t raise her voice. “It happens to everybody. You can either support your friend through this or sulk about it, but I will not have you treat it as something unnatural or disgusting.”

“What about Panthe,” you mumble. “Why isn’t she hearing about this?”

“Because you two woke me up while you were strongly convinced Pollux was dying,” She smooths a hand over Pol’s forehead, and he doesn’t flinch away from her like he did from you, the jerk. “I’ll fetch some heat packs and food for you, and after that I advise you get some sleep, if you can.”

“How long ith thith going to latht?” Pol asks.

“A week, every time you go through a major metamorphosis.” She studies him intently. “What did you do about the initial purge?”

You repress a shudder because _ew_ , and because Pol is already as mustard as the condiment. “I replathed my thopor without telling you guyth. Thorry.”

Rosa actually laughs, and for some reason it seems to make Pol feel better. “I poured my sopor down the ablutions trap,” she says gently. “For some reason, the Daughters didn’t think telling us about our own reproduction cycles was a good idea.” She rests a hand on his head lightly for just a moment, then stands up and brushes off her skirt. “I’ll get that food. There’s no need to be ashamed, Pollux.”

“Thankth,” he whispers, and you’re not sure what for. When you go to get up and help Rosa, he grabs your wrist and looks at you helplessly, and you sit back down again.

“You’re not going to get a kismesis, are you?” you ask him, wrinkling your nose.

“No!” Pol says. “ _Groth_ , KC.”

\--

Panthe already knew. Panthe already knew because she reads stupid romance books that are stupid and accurate and also she lived in the wild and lots of creatures do weird things when they hit - _ughghghgh_ \- sexual maturity. She laughs at you and sneaks up behind you and whispers _purrrrrrrging_ in your ear until you hit her with a pillow.

She also curls up on Pol to act as his personal heating pad and asks him, “Are you going to get a _matespurrit_?”

“I’m going to lie here and eat everything in the hive,” Pol tells her. “When I thtop hurting I’m going to take _ablutionth_.”

“Good!” Panthe says, and steals his book to read the back cover. “Because Kar and I aren’t sharing you with anyone.”

“AC!” he says, and shoves at her ineffectually. “We’re probably going to die before quadrants matter,” he says gloomily when he doesn’t get his book back. Panthe knocks him over the head with it and you go back to pretending to do the dishes before Rosa gets back to the hive.

\--

It hits you only a couple of perigees later, _thanks candyblood_. Panthe is either a late bloomer or she just dealt with it without anyone noticing, but you’re curled up and shaking and also getting weird blood-genetic-material-purge everywhere and this is _exactly_ as gross as you thought it would be and Pol making fun of you is _not helping_.

“Going to get a matethprit now, KC?” he asks when you prod him awake to help with the laundry because you are not dealing with it right now and he’s already been through this which makes it less horrific, hopefully. When you swat him, he ducks it. “Kithmethith?”

“My _kithmethith_ is metamorphosis,” you groan.

He pulls you close with one arm and kisses the top of your head, stealing your half of the blanket pile as he does so. “I’ll be your authpith, thith onthe,” he says. “Go lie the fuck down.”

There could be worse auspices than Pol, you think, as you curl up like a grub on the couch. Much worse, you decide muzzily, as he lays a psionic-dried blanket over you without disturbing your doze. Hopefully you’re not worrying him as much as he worried you.


End file.
